More than ten thousand mergers and acquisitions occur annually in the US, many among small- and mid-sized companies. These complex transactions can be an effective growth strategy, but they carry significant risk.

Mergers and Acquisitions from A to Z helps guard against costly mistakes. Expert advice, case studies, checklists, and sample documents walk you through every step of the process — from valuation to securities laws to closing and successful integration. Covering the latest trends and regulatory developments, the fourth edition explains how to:

Prepare for and initiate a deal

Create a letter of intent

Conduct due diligence

Structure profitable deals

Calculate the purchase price

Raise capital

Keep transactions on track

Understand the roles and risks for boards

Manage postclosing challenges

And more

When done properly, mergers and acquisitions let companies eliminate rivals, extend territory, and diversify offerings. This trusted resource delivers the strategic and legal guidance you need to make the most of every deal.

Why do so many promising job candidates turn out to be disappointing employees? How can you consistently hire the right people at the right time for the right roles?

Employment expert Paul Falcone supplies the tools you need to land top talent. The third edition of his practical and popular book is packed with interview questions, each designed to reveal the real person sitting across the table. What is the applicant's motivation for changing jobs? How well does he handle stress? Does she consistently show initiative? Managers learn to define the key criteria they seek in their next hire and pose strategic questions to uncover these qualities, including:

Complete with guidelines for analyzing answers, asking follow-up questions, checking references, and making winning offers — as well as new chapters on evaluating freelancers and onboarding successfully — the book simplifies the hiring process and puts people in place who can get the job done.

Businesses focused on Millennials . . . beware! Their successors are right around the corner — promising bigger challenges, but much greater opportunities.

Drawn from original quantitative research and interviews, Marketing to Gen Z paints a fascinating portrait of the newest buyers now entering the scene. Having internalized the lessons of the Great Recession, this pivotal generation blends the pragmatism and work ethic of older generations with the high ideals and digital prowess of youth. For brands, reaching this mobile-first and socially-conscious cohort requires real change, not just tweaks to the Millennial plan.

Marketing to Gen Z offers dozens of examples and insights for connecting and conversing, including how to:

Get past the 8-second filter

Avoid blatant advertising and tap influencer marketing

Reflect their values

Understand their language and off-beat humor

Adapt content and social media strategies

Offer the shopping experiences they expect

And more

By 2020, Generation Z is expected to comprise 40 percent of all consumers. The time to learn who they are and what they want is NOW.

Cybercrime is on the rise — and businesses large and small are at risk. For management, the question is not if you will be targeted, but when. Are you prepared? Is your enterprise actively monitoring networks, taking steps to understand and contain attacks, enabling continued operation during an incident? Do you have a recovery plan ready?

Few are prepared, explains cybersecurity expert Ray Rothrock, who lays bare tactics used by hackers, vulnerabilities lurking in networks, and strategies not just for surviving attacks, but thriving even while under assault.

Fascinating and highly readable,Digital Resilience opens with the infamous 2013 Target attack, which compromised the credit card information of 40 million customers. In hindsight, the hack (like most today) was preventable. This book helps businesses:

Understand the threats they face

Assess the resilience of their networks against attacks

Identify and address weaknesses

Respond to exploits swiftly and effectively

Data theft. Downed servers. Malware. Even human error can trigger cyber events anytime from anywhere around the globe. This powerful guide provides the resilience-building strategies you need to prevail — no matter what strikes.

Listening might seem like the easiest thing in the world to do. But most people retain only a fraction of what they hear, resulting in miscommunications and lost opportunities.

When you actively listen, you learn to gather perspectives, bridge differences, and resolve problems. Absorbing what a person is saying, thinking, and feeling sets the stage for dramatically improved relationships and increased professional success.

Listen Up or Lose Out pulls this underused tool out from the shadows and highlights its role in effective communications. Step by step, the book breaks down listening into a set of learnable skills, explaining how to:

Solid profits, a strong brand, steady customers — all of these can vanish when market shifts disrupt business as usual. So how do you keep from losing ground? How do you stay a step ahead of competitors?

The solution is surprisingly straightforward: innovate tweak by tweak. By making incremental adjustments to every aspect of the business — marketing, customer service, finances, products, people — then repeating the process, fixing weaknesses and spotting opportunities becomes a winning habit.

Entrepreneur Susan Solovic, an expert in business survival tactics, explains how to continually grow, improve, and move the business forward. With hundreds of strategies, examples, and a six-step process, The One-Percent Edge explains how to:

Put energy into profitable areas and trim dead weight

Raise prices by selling value instead of things

Access new markets by adapting products or services<

Hire the right team players

Turn customers into brand ambassadors

Find your own niche and avoid imitating

And more

When change happens swiftly and often, even successful brands are vulnerable. Businesses with the edge are constantly evolving . . . and pulling ahead of the pack.

An unstoppable business revolution is under way — and it is Agile. Companies that embrace Agile Management learn to connect everyone and everything . . . all the time. They can deliver instant, intimate, frictionless value on a large scale.

Agile began emerging many decades ago, but truly took off in the software development industry. Sparking dramatic improvements in quality, innovation, and speed-to-market, the Agile movement is now spreading quickly throughout all kinds of companies. It enables a team, a unit, or an enterprise to nimbly adapt and upgrade products and services to meet rapidly changing technology and customer needs. And the process is applicable anywhere — companies don't need to be born Agile, like Spotify. Even centuries-old Barclays is making the transition and reaping rewards.

Filled with examples from every sector, The Age of Agile helps readers:

Master the three laws of Agile Management (team, customer, network)

Embrace the new mindset

Overcome constraints

Employ meaningful metrics

Make the entire organization Agile

And more

With this breakthrough approach, even global giants can learn to act entrepreneurially. Their future depends on it.

Unless you're sitting on a pile of cash, chances are you'll need to take out a mortgage when you're ready to buy a home. But how do you know how much house you can afford? What should you look for in a loan? What kind of paperwork is needed . . . and how do you improve your odds of getting a great rate? Mortgages 101 eliminates the confusion and stress with clear-cut answers to all your questions.

Updated to reflect the enormous changes in the mortgage market in recent years, Mortgages 101 is the all-in-one reference you've been looking for. Covering a wide range of topics — from negotiating the best deal to saving on closing costs — this revised third edition provides the latest information on:

Makers, doers, and dreamers — for decades they have turned to Inc. for help in getting their businesses off the ground. The publication's keen advice clarifies the process, while startup stories fuel aspirations and spark action.

Warby Parker shook up the eyewear sector with its innovative, socially-conscious business model. Skullcandy tapped into the surfing, skateboarding, and hip-hop scenes — and built a standout audio brand. All along, Inc. was there, capturing triumphs, setbacks, and lessons learned.

Now, Start a Successful Business gathers these important lessons into a single path-charting guide. From brainstorming to crowdfunding to building partnerships, the book walks new and aspiring founders through seven crucial stages:

Come up with a brilliant business idea

Select the best structure and strategy for your startup

Figure out funding

Get the word out — and get customers

Dig deep to discover their wants and needs

Become an exceptional leader

Prepare to go global

Throughout, celebrated entrepreneurs share ideas that worked for them, including where Sarah Blakely got the inspiration for Spanx, how Elon Musk stays insanely productive, why Rent the Runway ditched the business plan, and how a hashtag accelerated Airbnb's success.

With a fleet of trusted experts by your side, starting a business will be faster, less confusing — and a whole lot more fun.